How much will I now pay in duties to ship a stylus from Japan?


Anybody import a phono cartridge/stylus from Japan since the August 29 when the old $800 duty-free threshold ended? I am interested in importing a vintage stylus that costs about $200. Worried about how much I will have to pay. Do the mail carries charge the duty before delivery? How much should I expect to pay? Any tips and what to ask the Ebay seller?

mrgopal

I can't say how much duty will be on a cartridge, but I just purchased a Luxman L-509Z on eBay from Japan. It was a brand-new unit and with taxes it cost me $7000. When it arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday I was hit with $1000 in tariffs! I was expecting something a little high, but not $1000. 

I still ended up with a unit selling in the USA for over $14,000 for $8000 but it did hurt a bit...

Bipod, why would tariffs cause shipping delays? 

Delays happen because packages under $800 used to come straight in, and now the carriers have to assess every package that comes in. They have to figure what the tariff is on every package, which depends on what country it originated in, not where it was shipped from. I bought something made in China from a Canadian company and I was charged the China tax. It is a monumental task for the carriers to deal with all of that. If you import a lot I think you will inevitably run into those type of delays.

I also got hit with the DHL 5 day demand. I don't think they calculated it correctly but you have no time to dispute it since it is impossible to actually talk to anybody at DHL. I assume if they send it back, whoever shipped it has to pay to get it back,  so some companies just refuse to ship anything to the US.

Making America Great Again one package at a time. 

 

 

 

herman, If what you say is true, that shippers have to calculate tariff (duty) based on country of manufacture, not country from which the shipment originated, that seems really awkward and no wonder some shippers refuse to ship to US, if that is also true. I think the latter degree of difficulty is paid for also by the buyer in the form of an add on charge from the shipper.  DHL does that for sure on the stuff I am getting from the UK. Fear not, in the end, we the buyers are paying for every aspect of this situation.

@testpilot 

"I assume that the customer paid for goods and then refused delivery.  Why not just deduct your cost of the transaction from the refund owed?"

As I said in my post, Fedex delivered the goods THEN billed him for taxes later so he already had the goods and refused to pay the tax and fee that he was responsible for. He was given the choice as to what carrier he preferred too. I assume that Fedex does this so they don't have a pile of package stuck in Customs. This is the 1st time I've ever experienced this. It wasn't an Audiogon transaction but I wanted to share this info in case it happens to someone here.

"I can't say how much duty will be on a cartridge, but I just purchased a Luxman L-509Z on eBay from Japan. It was a brand-new unit and with taxes it cost me $7000. When it arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday I was hit with $1000 in tariffs! I was expecting something a little high, but not $1000. 

I still ended up with a unit selling in the USA for over $14,000 for $8000 but it did hurt a bit..."

@cdhumiston Didn't you also say in another thread that you had to use a stepdown transformer because the Luxman is Japanese voltage and it's also well known that Luxman and other mfg's won't honor their warrantees for purchases from overseas?  Bummer!